


Tell That Devil I'll Take You Back

by sequence_fairy



Series: The Devil's Backbone [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Demonic Possession, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:40:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21956797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sequence_fairy/pseuds/sequence_fairy
Summary: Shiro had not handed Keith the bottle of Jack, but he had stitched him up and in the morning, as the sun rose, he and Keith had been flying down the highway in Keith’s car, corn fields on one side and mist rising from the Mississippi on the other.It’s been nearly a year since then, and Shiro doesn’t miss the endless cornfields of his Missouri youth, having traded them in for shotgun shells filled with rock salt and a notebook filled with Latin phrases.There’s also Keith.The one where Keith's a hunter and Shiro's not but he tags along anyway.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Series: The Devil's Backbone [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1687081
Comments: 24
Kudos: 102
Collections: Ace Pilot Exchange 2019





	Tell That Devil I'll Take You Back

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zombietime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombietime/gifts).



> Merry merry, happy happy Elliott. I know this is a little more spn than bfu, but I hope you love it anyway.

Shiro meets Keith on a Tuesday night, in February. Not Valentine’s Day, but close to it. Shiro remembers because the first time he meets Keith is also the first time he ends up with Keith’s blood on his hands. It’s not a lot of blood, relative to other occasions where there will be more of it, but it’s certainly enough to leave a lasting impression. 

Well. Saying that Shiro meets Keith is kind of implying that Keith had any active involvement in the encounter. Really, what happened was that Shiro was walking home from his job slinging eggs at the local twenty-four hour diner and he tripped over Keith, who was groaning on the sidewalk. Shiro had nearly bitten it himself, his arm thrown out as a last ditch effort to balance himself. 

“Dude! What the fuck are you doing in the middle of the sidewalk!” 

Keith had rolled over in response, grabbed the knife beside him and thrown himself at the inky black shape Shiro had missed in his flailing around. The knife had sizzled on impact, before a horrible noise rent the air and the smell of sulfur made Shiro gag, covering his mouth with his hand. 

Later, Shiro had picked road grit out of the gash on Keith’s arm and Keith had explained that the thing he’d killed in the alley behind a closed video rental store was a shapeshifter, that it had been going to kill him and that Shiro absolutely did not have to stay, stitch him up or do anything except hand Keith the bottle of Jack in his bag and be on his merry way. 

Shiro had not handed Keith the bottle of Jack, but he had stitched him up and in the morning, as the sun rose, he and Keith had been flying down the highway in Keith’s car, corn fields on one side and mist rising from the Mississippi on the other. 

It’s been nearly a year since then, and Shiro doesn’t miss the endless cornfields of his Missouri youth, having traded them in for shotgun shells filled with rock salt and a notebook filled with Latin phrases. 

There’s also Keith. 

Keith who shoots first, and never asks questions later. Keith, who Shiro has patched up and talked down and fought next to and who has never ever wondered whether Shiro can keep up. Keith who doesn’t mind the fact that sometimes, Shiro can’t sleep because all he can hear is the thump of mortar rounds and the scream of twisting metal. Keith, who talks with his mouth full of pancakes and drinks his coffee black and doesn’t like Milk Duds and eats black licorice by the pound and never gains an ounce.

Keith, whose eyes sometimes flash in the dark like a cat, who sometimes seems to know things about Shiro without Shiro telling him, whose hands, Shiro swears, look sometimes more like claws than even a trick of the light could be blamed for. Keith who listens to old rock music and tells Shiro there isn’t anything good written after 1979, but who begrudgingly allows Shiro to pick the music on the rare occasion Keith allows him to drive. 

Keith, who has come back to the kitschy motel room they’re sharing, rain-wet and looking like something a cat might have dragged backwards through a hedge. 

“Keith?” Shiro looks up from the pages of Keith’s father’s diary. He’s been trying to make a fair copy, trying to reorganize the content of the journal into something they can actually use, because right now it’s a jumbled mess. 

Keith swipes his wet hair out of his eyes. “Demon,” he says. 

Shiro’s already moving. 

===

The house is dark when they arrive. 

“Plan?” Shiro asks, unbuckling his seatbelt. 

Keith shrugs. “Waste the fucker?” 

“Good enough,” Shiro agrees, and then he’s out of the car. 

While the rain pours down, they load up and out. Shiro shoulders the pack, leaving Keith to take point as they pick their way between the puddles and up the front walk to the porch. Shiro can feel the aura of the house as they approach. Ominous is the right word, he thinks. A flash of lightning lights up blank, dark windows. The thunder that follows is low and deep, the kind Shiro feels more than hears. 

They clear the two upper floors without issue, though Keith spends much of this time grumbling under his breath. 

The basement doorknob, when they get to the door in the kitchen that leads downstairs, is cold to the touch. Cold enough that Shiro snatches his hand back, shaking it out as he does. 

“On three?” Keith says, and Shiro nods. 

“Three,” Shiro starts, positioning himself directly to the right of the door. “Two,” Shiro says, cocking the shotgun one-handed. “One.” 

Keith throws the door open. 

The scent of sulfur rises in the air, thick and cloying. Shiro swallows hard. Keith pulls his bandana up over his nose and mouth, and then reaches across to do the same for Shiro, before stepping down the stairs and into the black. 

Shiro follows.

Near the bottom of the staircase, Shiro feels rather than sees Keith falter. 

“Keith?” Shiro whispers, but there’s nothing. The dark down here is almost a physical presence. It seems to hang in the air. Shiro can’t see the hand in front of his face. He can’t see Keith. “Keith?” 

Something touches the back of Shiro’s neck just as his leading foot touches the cement floor. It’s cold. Ice cold. It’s the last thing Shiro feels for a long time. 

=== 

Keith hates this kind of demon especially. The kind that hides in shadows and won’t show itself. The kind that scares a family out of their home. The kind that leaves a lingering bad taste in the back of his mouth with every breath of the stagnant air in this basement. 

“Shiro,” Keith says, out the side of his mouth. “Shiro, the light.” Keith reaches back to where he thinks Shiro should be, but his hand meets empty air. 

“Lookin’ for me, kid?” Shiro asks, but that’s not the cadence of Shiro’s voice.

Keith turns. 

“Nice bod on this one,” Shiro says, looking down at himself. “Shame about the arm though.” 

Keith bristles. His grip on his knife tightens. “Get out of him.” 

“What’ll you give me if I do?” The demon wearing Shiro’s face asks. 

“Fuck you,” Keith spits, and flicks his wrist. Holy water arcs through the air and hits Shiro in the face. On impact, it hisses like oil in a hot pan. The demon cries out, clutching at his face. “Get out of him!” 

“Keith, Keith, Keith,” the demon says, shaking holy water out of his eyes, and wiping down his face with the hem of Shiro’s t-shirt. “I know you won’t do anything you might regret later.” 

Keith, who has, up to the moment he met Shiro nearly a year ago, mostly lived a life populated by actions he regrets later, sends another spray of holy water towards the demon. Once again, the demon grabs at his face. Keith takes advantage of it’s distraction to dart in and swipe with the knife in his other hand. It’s edge catches Shiro in the side, along his ribs. Blood wells against the fabric of Shiro’s t-shirt. 

“Willing to slice him up, are you?” The demon says, dancing out of the reach of Keith’s blade when Keith comes in for a second time. 

“Gotta do what I gotta do,” Keith says, with grim determination. He knows Shiro would expect nothing less. 

The demon laughs, throwing back his head. Shiro never laughs like that, Keith thinks. Shiro’s laughs are understated. They’re quick and quiet, and they’re something Keith never tires of causing. He likes to be the cause of Shiro’s laughter. He wants to hear it again. 

“What’re you gonna do, little witch boy?” The demon asks, just out of the reach of Keith’s blade. 

Witch boy? What? Keith shakes himself. Not the time. “I’m getting you out of him,” Keith says tossing the last of the holy water at the demon, and then throwing the vial into the darkness beside him. 

“And what if I want to stay here, all cozy and warm, with dear Shiro?” 

Keith flinches. 

“Ah, I thought so,” the demon says and taps Shiro’s finger against Shiro’s nose. “The nose knows,” it singsongs, before it grins, wolfish. “Wouldn’t you like to know what he thinks about you. I bet you can’t even imagine it.” 

The thing is that Keith can. Because if it’s anything like his own imaginings, and he has hoped that it might be, Keith can see it in vivid technicolour and has been for weeks in his dreams. 

The demon’s grin twists Shiro’s mouth. “It’s absolutely filthy up here,” he says, blinking glowing eyes and tapping his temple. “Filthy. He shouldn’t kiss his own mother with his mouth.” 

“His mother’s dead,” Keith says, automatic. It’s a topic they’ve only talked about once. A shared trauma they buried as soon as it tried to get a bit of the light being thrown off by the magnitude of their friendship. Keith wonders if Shiro feels that too. Whenever they’re together, it feels like Keith’s been lit from within. It’s like a supernova in his chest whenever Shiro smiles. 

“You better hurry,” the demon hisses as he steps forward. “Little Shiro is getting tired of fighting. When I win, there’ll be nothing left of him to save.” 

“Asshole,” Keith grits out, teeth clenched around the yell of frustration building in his throat. “Take me instead,” he says. As soon as he’s said it, Keith knows it was a mistake. 

“You shouldn’t offer something you’re unprepared to pay,” the demon says. 

In for a penny, in for a pound. Keith squares his shoulders. “Let Shiro go and take me instead.”

The demon pauses, eyes widening. There’s an undercurrent of something in the air. For a minute, Keith thinks the demon will take him up on his offer. 

“This has gone on long enough,” it says, finally, and advances on Keith for real. The air around Shiro’s missing arm seems to thicken, but Keith can’t make out what’s happening. There’s both an arm and not an arm and then the hand is around his throat and Keith’s knife clatters to the floor as he brings up both hands to try and pull the phantom fingers from around his neck. 

“Got you now,” the demon says, and walks Keith back until Keith’s back hits the wall with a thump. Keith is lifted, high enough that his toes barely touch the floor and he’s gasping, desperate for air. “What was that you said about getting me out of him? Guess who’s not getting out of here alive after all.” 

The demon’s hand around Keith’s neck squeezes and Keith chokes. “Please,” he says, voice almost completely gone. “Shiro,” he pleads, “Shiro, please.” 

“Listen to you begging like the little bitch you are,” the demon scoffs and he shoves Keith further up the wall. Keith’s feet dance in the air, unable to reach the floor.

Vision tunnelling, and nostrils full of the stink of sulfur and ash, Keith blinks tears out of his eyes and looks down at Shiro’s face. 

“I’ll make sure he remembers this,” the demon says. 

“I love you,” Keith says, because his lungs are burning and his chest is heavy and he can see nothing but the glow of the demon behind Shiro’s eyes and his hands have fallen away to hang useless at his sides. “Shiro, I love you.” 

=== 

“Keith,” Shiro says, into the emptiness of his mind. “Keith, hang on. I’m coming.” 

===

The demon drops Keith’s limp form into a heap on the floor and stretches his arms over his head. This body is good. It’s in great shape, minus the missing arm. He thinks he’ll keep it.

Too bad about the little witch though, maybe he’d been too hasty in killing him. The demon pokes at Keith with the toe of one of Shiro’s shoes. No response. Well, guess you can kill a witch with your bare hands. 

The magic in the phantom limb pulses and the demon stumbles back. There’s a roaring in his ears, like a freight train bearing down on him. He turns in a full circle, trying to locate the source of the sound, but there’s nothing in the basement except himself and Keith. The roaring goes up in pitch, until it becomes a scream, deafening and painful. The demon slaps his hands over his ears, only to find that the phantom limb has disappeared. 

There’s a sucking maw in the centre of his chest, like someone unplugged a stopper in a sink. 

“Get the fuck out of me,” Shiro says, in his own voice, with his own mouth. 

“What are you?” the demon asks, even as Shiro shoves forward in his own mind. 

“I’m Shiro,” Shiro says, and  _ pushes _ . 

The demon screams and dissipates in a cloud of shrieking darkness.

Silence falls. 

Shiro wobbles on his feet, unsteady in his own body. He takes stock. His mind is quiet, and his alone again. He’s down one magic arm but it was definitely not worth the trouble. His eyes land on Keith, crumpled on the floor next to the wall. 

“Keith!” Shiro throws himself to his knees and turns Keith over onto his back. He rests Keith’s head in the cradle of his lap. “Keith,” Shiro says, and brushes the hair off Keith’s face. A ring of dark purple bruises stands against the skin of Keith’s neck. “C’mon buddy,” Shiro says, shifting so he can lay Keith flat on the floor. 

He’s fumbling for a pulse when Keith shivers back to consciousness and then coughs. It’s a horrible, painful sound and it goes on and on, until Keith is wheezing. 

“You’re okay,” Shiro says, hauling Keith up to sitting. Keith’s arms come up weakly around Shiro’s waist. “You’re alright, I’ve got you.” 

Keith buries his head in the join of Shiro’s neck and Shiro strokes his hand down the length of Keith’s spine until Keith’s shuddering stops and he’s breathing evenly. 

“You alright?” Shiro asks, shifting back so he can look at Keith more properly. 

“Yeah,” Keith croaks. His voice is ruined. “I think.” 

“You sound like shit,” Shiro observes. 

“Thanks,” Keith husks. “Are you okay?” 

“Yeah,” Shiro says. 

Both of them know the other is lying.

They pick themselves up off the floor and help each other climb back up the stairs and out of the house. The storm from earlier has moved off, leaving a mostly clear sky. Stars peek out between the scudding clouds. 

Shiro holds a hand out for the keys. “Of the two of us,” he says, when Keith doesn’t immediately drop them into his outstretched palm, “I’m not the one who was probably clinically dead today.” 

Keith gives Shiro the keys. 

Shiro gets in the car and watches as Keith folds himself into the passenger seat. It’s a long moment before Shiro moves to start the engine and they sit there while the radio hisses static at them. 

“About before,” Shiro says.

“I–” Keith starts. There’s a quaver in his voice that makes Shiro look over at him. 

“I heard you,” Shiro says, “I don’t know if it let me hear you or if it got through some other way, but I just,” Shiro sighs, and scrubs his hand through his hair. “Keith. Wherever I was, it was so dark and empty and then, there was your voice, like some kind of path to follow to lead myself home.” 

Keith swallows. Shiro watches the bob of his Adam’s apple. 

“I guess what I’m trying to say,” Shiro says, and leans over the centre console, turning his body so he can trace the line of Keith’s jaw. Keith doesn’t flinch away from the touch. “Is that I love you, too.” 

Shiro kisses Keith there, under the glow of a streetlight, a ring of bruises around Keith’s throat and the taste of sulfur on both their tongues.

**Author's Note:**

> Please come and chat with me about my fic on [tumblr](http://sequencefairy.tumblr.com) or on [twitter](https://twitter.com/warpspeed_chic).


End file.
